'Quite big and quite bad': MSNBC's Rachel Maddow sounds alarm after new Trump admin exodus
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested that a sudden wave of resignations inside the IRS is an obvious sign that massive turmoil is brewing within the agency.
Maddow drew the stark conclusion during her Wednesday night show, where she highlighted the startling number of high-level officials at the IRS leaving the agency over its deal with the MAGA administration to hand over sensitive tax data to immigration officials.
“It’s hard to tell sometimes on a day-to-day basis, but one of the good indicators that something really big is going wrong is when you get news that people who have really big jobs in one part of the government – they all leave – they all quit or are fired all of a sudden and without warning,” Maddow said. “And it's because they had been trying to stop something from happening. They weren't able to stop that thing from happening, and so now they have left the agency, they have left the government – that is a pretty reliable sign that something quite big and quite bad is happening.”
Among the top officials reportedly fleeing the IRS over the immigration standoff include the agency’s acting commissioner, Melanie Krause, as well as its chief financial officer, the IRS chief of staff, and the chief risk officer – all of whom “have also resigned in recent days,” according to Maddow.
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“Same with the IRS chief privacy officer,” the primetime host added. “The top lawyer at the IRS was also reportedly demoted recently. And you only see these things every so often, even in an administration as disastrous as this one.”
Maddow pointed out that what was particularly notable about the sudden departures was why they “might feel like that was the hill they needed to die on.”
“I’m no expert, but I feel like I can measure the size of the splash that's being made by this particular cannonball at the IRS by the news of who is leaving the agency all of a sudden and without warning because of something going wrong there,” she said. “So I have some questions about that.”
Maddow previewed one of her questions to viewers Wednesday as she reminded them that Tax Day is April 15: “What happens to our country if the Trump administration breaks the IRS?”